Cooking Traditional Foods

I haven’t had an adrenal attack since Wednesday night, and at this point we’re pretty sure that it was due to not taking in enough salt compared to my activity level. Apparently the shot helped me enough that I’m not having the dizziness associated with the adrenal fatigue, so I didn’t catch that I didn’t have enough salt in me. Now I’m making sure that I’m consuming at least 2 tsp in 6-8 cups of water a day. If I’m sweating or active, I up that amount.  I just wish I could get comfortable enough with the salt intake needs and how to balance it all that I can start increasing my activity level without worry of another attack.

I’m beginning to wonder if I have other weirdness going on. I’ve been taking Vitamin C along with the salt, though not purposefully trying to do a salt/C protocol. I’ve had some rashes come out. Painless, doesn’t itch. At any rate, anything like that dying and getting pushed out is good.

After last night’s adrenal attack, I took it easy today and spent almost all day on the couch. We ate leftovers for breakfast and lunch, and I made the quickest, easiest dinner possible- taco meat on top of corn chips. And I still got sick after dinner with another adrenal attack. I’m discouraged, and I’ll call the doctor tomorrow.

Even though I’m having the adrenal attacks, I still don’t have the pain and heaviness I had been experiencing in my arms and legs, I’m still thinking clearly. The low back pain is back, but it’s clearly adrenal pain around the waist and there isn’t any muscle pain with it, so it’s not as bad as what I had been experiencing. I don’t have the muscle pain and soreness all over. So the shot was a definite help, it just hasn’t dealt with the adrenal issues. It wasn’t meant to directly deal with the adrenal issues, so I shouldn’t be surprised.

Tomorrow I will increase my salt intake to 2 tsp and will also make sure I take in at least 8 cups of water. I also need to make some final decisions on what supplements I’m going to stay on and which ones to change or drop. We do know I’m low on B12 as a minimum. I also need to work on making sure I’m taking in enough calories and fat to help keep me from spiraling and dropping weight again. The adrenal attacks are hard on your food intake.

I haven’t updated the blog in a long, long time. As of my last writing, I was caring for my dad. I finally left Mount Olive after 5 weeks and headed home. My adrenals completely crashed. I became quite exhausted, and just went downhill. Again.

Finally, I found the Adrenal Fatigue thread on MDC, and got saliva testing done. Amazingly, my cotrisol test came back HIGH. I was shocked. I had every symptoms of low cotrisol. So I got online and started reading. I found Dr. John Wilson at Great Smokies Medical Center here in Asheville, who had some awesome stuff on his website. He had accurate, excellent information on adrenal fatigue, thyroid treatment, and even recommends raw milk on his website!

Last Wednesday, Jeff and I went to see Dr. Wilson with my saliva tests in hand. He looked at my saliva test, and the first thing he asked is if I had an open sore or bleeding gums when my testing was done. I did have a gum bleed. He immediately realized there was a problem with the test results. We talked for over 2 hours. He did muscle testing, looked at past test results and medical records I brought with me, and we ran a huge number of lab tests. Muscle testing showed I am mercury toxic, and I do have low B-12, adrenal issues and Hashimoto’s thyroiditis. We’re waiting to see what else the lab results show. We have decided that as a minimum I will do an anti-oxidant that has a side effect of pulling mercury out of the brain. Once the other results are in, we’ll see if there’s anything else to add to that list.

So today, I got in the kitchen and worked like a mad woman, only breaking to process subscriptions and eat a big lunch. At 2 o’clock I sat down and realized I felt tired. I took a nap around 2:45, and when I woke up about 3:30, I knew I had overdone it. My arms were back to feeling like lead and I was nauseated. I laid on the couch until time to finish dinner. After dinner, I had a low-aldosterone, adrenal attack and started dumping fluid. So tomorrow, I will take it at a more reasonable pace. I am going to have to curb my enthusiasm and not over-do it, or I could likely set myself back. Now that the attack is over, my arms aren’t feeling like they have lead in them anymore, and I’m feeling ok even though it’s 10 o’clock at night. Comparatively, it was a mild adrenal attack, but it was enough to warn me to pace myself and not get crazy and to continue to ask people to help as I need it. I’m hopeful I’ll wake up tomorrow feeling good.

The anti-oxidant is by Dr. Boyd Haley, and is called OSR, or Oxidative Stress Reducer. I’ll start once the doctor’s office gets another shipment in. It’s oral and it dumps through the bowels instead of the kidneys and is said to only pull mercury from the central nervous system. As I learn more about it, I’ll post more. I can tell you already that it’s highly controversial, and a lot of folks in the chelation community have extremely strong opinions on which protocol is best, or is the only one that should be used by everyone. In just joining some lists and saying that I was doing a doctor-led protocol instead of trying to piece it together myself or from a book, I’ve already been attacked over it by those who feel all of the doctors are wrong except the one they happen to follow. I’ve had more than one person tell me, quite rudely, that I’m going to make myself much, much sicker just because I’m seeing a doctor for treatment and they just want to experiment on people. I’m praying for discernment and the ability to sift the grain from the chaff as I learn more about this area of regaining my health.

I’m most anxious to get my hair and neurotransmitter testing back, and my individual nutrient levels, since we already know my B12 is low. The hair testing will give us the full range of heavy metals and a full picture of what we’re facing with the chelation. I’ll post to the blog often through this journey so you can follow the progress of my treatment. As we get test results back, I’ll post them here.